Never mind the polls—we’re convinced our candidate is going to win

How much do we value our own opinions? We're willing to believe that other …

Imagine you’re asked to do something out of the ordinary, like carry around a funny sign for a day or eat a food that doesn’t look so appetizing. Then you’re asked how many other people might say yes to the strange request. Past studies have shown that, if you agreed to carry the sign or eat the food, you’re much more likely to believe that lots of other people would say yes to the request too. Alternatively, if you declined, you’d probably think that the majority of people would say no. The same pattern holds true if you are asked about something like recycling; you’re more likely to believe that other people value recycling if you do.

This positive association between our beliefs and our perceptions of social beliefs—called “false consensus”—generally occurs when we don’t have a lot of information about what others might do or believe. When we don’t know what other people think, we tend to make assumptions based on our own preferences.

A group of researchers wondered whether the effect would occur when there is a lot of publicly available information about what other people think: during elections. Even with frequent and well-publicized political polls, are people’s beliefs about the outcome of an election tied to their own preferences?

The PNAS study used data from the Rand Corporation’s American Life Panel (ALP), a survey administered online to Americans 18 and older. In the fall of 2008, the ALP asked respondents how likely they were to vote for Barack Obama, John McCain, or a third candidate in the upcoming presidential election. Then, they were asked how likely each candidate was to win the election. In 2010, respondents were asked similar questions about the senatorial and gubernatorial elections in their home states.

In each instance, the false consensus effect occurred. The more a respondent favored a particular candidate, the higher they estimated his or her chances of winning the election. For instance, those who were positive they would not vote for Obama estimated his chances of winning the election at 40 percent, those who said they were equally torn between Obama and McCain estimated Obama’s chances at 51 percent. The people who were absolutely positive they would vote for Obama thought that there was a 65 percent chance he would become president. The results held true for both candidates, as well as for the state elections in 2010.

These patterns persisted no matter how the results were stratified: respondents of every age, race, and education level thought that their preferred candidate was more likely to win the election. When people changed their candidate preferences over time, their expectations about the outcome of the election shifted as well.

Researchers think that false consensus arises when people extrapolate their preferences to others when they don’t have much public information to go on. However, the effect in this instance is somewhat unexpected, since public opinions are well known thanks to political polling. The researchers acknowledge that the factors at work in this example of false consensus may not be the same ones behind other instances of the phenomenon.

In a statement that seems to apply as much to society in general as it does to this study, the researchers write, "It thus appears that Americans, despite having access to the same publicly available information, nevertheless inhabit disparate perceptual worlds."

97 Reader Comments

This is why Democracy is a terrible system, even though it's the best we have come up with. Humans are, as a group, terrible decision makers and incapable of fairly and honestly weighing facts and possible solutions.

The alternative to having lots of humans in charge is having just a few of them in charge. Given the sorts of people who tend to take over things, I think that is worse.

I don't know why I bother responding to trolls, but Ron Paul is the second highest in delegates according to CNN yesterday night. Stop being ignorant.

Doesn't change the fact that the hell would freeze over before he would become the GOP candidate not even talking about president.

Withdrawal from the UN and NATO? Gold Standard? Global warming a hoax?

This guy may be nice, and different and in some areas he has great positions but in other areas he is simply a wacko, with a very very very dedicated fanbase.

Which again validates the article and the poster you called ignorant. A surprisingly big amount of people can follow someone who will never ever have a chance to reach the levers of power. (And thank god for that)

Doesn't mean I dislike him or wish him gone, many of his ideas and positions are great and its good to have some outliers and fresh thinkers in the discussion, let many roses bloom and so on. He just never should become president. That would be a disaster.

Finally! We finally have scientific evidence of WHY Ron Paul is still in the race!

Actually, no. Most Paul supporters that I know don't believe he can win, but they do believe that keeping him a force in the race will force the media and the other people running to at least acknowledge what he's talking about.

"Past studies have shown that, if you agreed to carry the sign or eat the food, you’re much more likely to believe that lots of other people would say yes to the request too. Alternatively, if you declined, you’d probably think that the majority of people would say no."

"Past studies have shown that, if you agreed to carry the sign or eat the food, you’re much more likely to believe that lots of other people would say yes to the request too. Alternatively, if you declined, you’d probably think that the majority of people would say no."

My brain hurts... Did this actually require a study?!?!

this should help your brain out... this study was needed because of the findings of the study.You see, the study says people who will do an action, think it is obviously the right thing to do, and assume most people will do it as well, BUT that has no bearing on reality. i.e. you already knowing that "people will think most people do something they choose to do" could have just been your own "false consensus" and the study needed to be done to rule that out.

The alternative to having lots of humans in charge is having just a few of them in charge. Given the sorts of people who tend to take over things, I think that is worse.

I really depends. A good dictator can be a very healthy thing for a society. Of course the opposite is also true, and the transitions are a complete mess. Probably the most significant thing Democracy gives us is a smooth transition between leaders. It's hard to stir up enough anger for an armed revolution when you can just vote the idiots out in 2-6 years (or you have the perception that you can, just like people have the perception that they can win the lottery).

On a side note, it drives me nuts when people claim the "Silent Majority" agrees with their side of an argument.

Not disagreeing with you, but I've always considered this the reason libertarianism never gains traction. If your philosophy is fundamentally against government, it's hard to be motivated to get involved in it. If you don't - or don't want to - play the game, you can't win. You lose by default.

The two problems with this are: misleading poll questions heavily biased to push the asker's agenda, and politicians that try to be as close to "all things to all people" as possible. I've experienced the former when the NRA has called asking the most ridiculously outlandish fearmongering questions, (followed by fund-raising). The latter is most obvious between every primary and general presidential election. I respect Ron Paul for his convictions and consistency, but all he is likely to achieve is try to get advertising for his ideas - like a poorer, wackier Ross Perot. Hmm... R.P. oddball candidates... to the conspiracy machines!

Getting his ideas widely circulated isn't a bad thing, though. And if people don't believe he can win, they are less likely to fight as hard for him. So my counterargument might be "The Little Engine That Could". General politics is just too complicated to apply this study to accurately, I would think (and clearly, a majority of you must agree).

Besides polls that could possibly be worded in ways to create a specific result, people that like a certain candidate will obviously think higher of them. I mean, should people just read the polls and say "Well, my candidate isn't doing well, best I just go for the one with the highest amount of support"? No, they're going to remain positive, even to the point of believing polls are skewed (which they sometimes can be, but not always), and they will believe who they want to win is going to win.

What I see this research actually pointing to is that people tend to believe their own perspectives on the world are common. This isn't anything new, people often confuse subjective understandings with objective ones. This is part of the reason why you sometimes here someone say to put yourself in another persons shoes.

I don't know why I bother responding to trolls, but Ron Paul is the second highest in delegates according to CNN yesterday night. Stop being ignorant.

Doesn't change the fact that the hell would freeze over before he would become the GOP candidate not even talking about president.

Withdrawal from the UN and NATO? Gold Standard? Global warming a hoax?

This guy may be nice, and different and in some areas he has great positions but in other areas he is simply a wacko, with a very very very dedicated fanbase.

Which again validates the article and the poster you called ignorant. A surprisingly big amount of people can follow someone who will never ever have a chance to reach the levers of power. (And thank god for that)

Doesn't mean I dislike him or wish him gone, many of his ideas and positions are great and its good to have some outliers and fresh thinkers in the discussion, let many roses bloom and so on. He just never should become president. That would be a disaster.

I can't even debate this with you if you are not even going to be fair about it. I know you dislike Ron Paul but that doesn't mean you can go around spreading the false news about un-electability. You cannot even be open minded to say that he has a chance of winning, especially since he is doing better than some of the other candidates, but you keep insisting how he is crazy.

I can't even debate this with you if you are not even going to be fair about it. I know you dislike Ron Paul but that doesn't mean you can go around spreading the false news about un-electability. You cannot even be open minded to say that he has a chance of winning, especially since he is doing better than some of the other candidates, but you keep insisting how he is crazy.

I like Ron Paul, for a number of reasons (consistency being a huge one). I think he is unelectable. I'm not convinced a Paul presidency would be a disaster (we have two branches of government to keep the POTUS in check), but I think enough people do think just that.

I take one issue with your commentary and, I am guessing, the PNAS paper you extrapolated from (I don't have a login):

Quote:

However, the effect in this instance is somewhat unexpected, since public opinions are well known thanks to political polling.

No, public opinions are not known. What is known are the results of a poll. Some polls have a high correlation to how an election turns out, but rarely do they have a high correlation to overall public opinion. At least, I have not seen any scientific evidence that poll results can be extrapolated to all of America, much less to the much-smaller voting population.

In that case, you could just go take a stats class. Just because you don't think the evidence is there doesn't mean it's not.

Finally! We finally have scientific evidence of WHY Ron Paul is still in the race!

I don't know why I bother responding to trolls, but Ron Paul is the second highest in delegates according to CNN yesterday night. Stop being ignorant.

WRONG! According to CNN, Ron Paul is the second candidate LISTED, not second in number of delegates.

As of 4:48 PM Pacific Time today, and not counting the results of Michigan or Arizona (so it would be the same count you saw), Mitt Romney is in the lead with 106 delegates. In second place is Rick Santorum with 37, followed by Newt Gingrich with 35, and last is Ron Paul with 27. The only people Ron Paul is ahead of are those that have dropped out.

Finally! We finally have scientific evidence of WHY Ron Paul is still in the race!

Actually, no. Most Paul supporters that I know don't believe he can win, but they do believe that keeping him a force in the race will force the media and the other people running to at least acknowledge what he's talking about.

I've talked to a lot of Paul supporters that believe he has this giant crowd of followers.

I don't know why I bother responding to trolls, but Ron Paul is the second highest in delegates according to CNN yesterday night. Stop being ignorant.

Doesn't change the fact that the hell would freeze over before he would become the GOP candidate not even talking about president.

Withdrawal from the UN and NATO? Gold Standard? Global warming a hoax?

This guy may be nice, and different and in some areas he has great positions but in other areas he is simply a wacko, with a very very very dedicated fanbase.

Which again validates the article and the poster you called ignorant. A surprisingly big amount of people can follow someone who will never ever have a chance to reach the levers of power. (And thank god for that)

Doesn't mean I dislike him or wish him gone, many of his ideas and positions are great and its good to have some outliers and fresh thinkers in the discussion, let many roses bloom and so on. He just never should become president. That would be a disaster.

I can't even debate this with you if you are not even going to be fair about it. I know you dislike Ron Paul but that doesn't mean you can go around spreading the false news about un-electability. You cannot even be open minded to say that he has a chance of winning, especially since he is doing better than some of the other candidates, but you keep insisting how he is crazy.

If anyone isn't being fair about things, it's you. According to CNN's Delegate Counter, as of today, Ron Paul is in dead last, not counting those that have dropped out.

At work, for some reason, it's a policy to keep a TV on, tuned to a new station, at all times, and the TV is nearest my workstation. So I've been seeing a lot of campaign coverage, and apparently the only questions the media considers worth discussing are poll results and electability.

In the first place, none of the news media are talking about anyone but Republicans, and rarely mention their actual political positions with any detail.

But what really gets me is that it's never made sense to me to choose who to vote for based on electability. Voting for a candidate who doesn't represent my beliefs means voting against my beliefs. How does that make sense?

At work, for some reason, it's a policy to keep a TV on, tuned to a new station, at all times, and the TV is nearest my workstation. So I've been seeing a lot of campaign coverage, and apparently the only questions the media considers worth discussing are poll results and electability.

In the first place, none of the news media are talking about anyone but Republicans, and rarely mention their actual political positions with any detail.

But what really gets me is that it's never made sense to me to choose who to vote for based on electability. Voting for a candidate who doesn't represent my beliefs means voting against my beliefs. How does that make sense?

Well, this is the primary election, not the general election. So all of the candidates might share some level of your beliefs. The second part is a direct result of the First Past The Post election system we have. You may think that it's stupid to vote for a candidate who doesn't represent your beliefs, but depending on the candidate, voting for the person who completely matches your beliefs instead of the guy who kinda matches your beliefs but not completely could mean that the guy who directly opposes your beliefs gets into office.

This was seen in Deleware in the 2010 election. They decided to vote for someone who ideologically matched their Tea Party beliefs: Christine "I'm not a witch" O'Donnell. While the hardcore Tea Partiers would have been happy with her, the vast majority of Deleware voters would not be, and as a result, the Democratic candidate won.

Interesting note: In that 2010 race, the Republican incumbent was expected to beat the Democrat by a fairly healthy margin, and in doing so would have gotten the Republicans one step closer to control of the Senate as well. Instead, the Democrat won, and someone whom the Tea Partiers vehemently opposed got into office.

This is why Democracy is a terrible system, even though it's the best we have come up with. Humans are, as a group, terrible decision makers and incapable of fairly and honestly weighing facts and possible solutions.

The US is not a democracy. It's a democratic republic. Big difference.

I don't know why I bother responding to trolls, but Ron Paul is the second highest in delegates according to CNN yesterday night. Stop being ignorant.

...This guy may be nice, and different and in some areas he has great positions but in other areas he is simply a wacko, with a very very very dedicated fanbase.

Which again validates the article and the poster you called ignorant. A surprisingly big amount of people can follow someone who will never ever have a chance to reach the levers of power. (And thank god for that)

Doesn't mean I dislike him or wish him gone, many of his ideas and positions are great and its good to have some outliers and fresh thinkers in the discussion, let many roses bloom and so on. He just never should become president. That would be a disaster.

Paul is a wacko? Do you prefer multi-trillion dollar deficits and handing over the keys to the country to China? Do you prefer endless wars and an Obama presidency that has maintained nearly every policy he campaigned against previously? The man is made of jellyfish. At least Paul's views are completely transparent and his consistency guarantees we'll "get the same person" if he's elected. His chances in 2008 were slim to none, but things are very different now. As the only Republican candidate with a solid understanding of economics, he is exactly the person we need now.

If anyone isn't being fair about things, it's you. According to CNN's Delegate Counter, as of today, Ron Paul is in dead last, not counting those that have dropped out.

You simply don't understand how the delegate process works. The vast majority of delegates are uncommitted right now. They will commit to a candidate when they reach the convention. Those uncommitted delegates are throwing their support behind Paul because they are part of a process that was started and has continued since 4 years ago. Romney cannot win without Paul support, and Paul supporters have zero interest in supporting Romney. All facts.

This positive association between our beliefs and our perceptions of social beliefs—called “false consensus”—generally occurs when we don’t have a lot of information about what others might do or believe. When we don’t know what other people think, we tend to make assumptions based on our own preferences.

If anyone isn't being fair about things, it's you. According to CNN's Delegate Counter, as of today, Ron Paul is in dead last, not counting those that have dropped out.

You simply don't understand how the delegate process works. The vast majority of delegates are uncommitted right now. They will commit to a candidate when they reach the convention. Those uncommitted delegates are throwing their support behind Paul because they are part of a process that was started and has continued since 4 years ago. Romney cannot win without Paul support, and Paul supporters have zero interest in supporting Romney. All facts.

This is why Democracy is a terrible system, even though it's the best we have come up with. Humans are, as a group, terrible decision makers and incapable of fairly and honestly weighing facts and possible solutions.

The US is not a democracy. It's a democratic republic. Big difference.

Only if you insists on the dictionary definition, rather than as a shorthand for represenative democracy.

"Ok ... But why do you need to carry a sign if the majority agrees with you? What's the sign for, if not to convince others?"

To let the other people who agree with them know that they're not alone in their belief.

This is the power of our P.C. Culture. You're not allowed to share your beliefs because they may hurt someone else's fragile feelings. and because of this, you think you're the only person with those beliefs, which allows the "victim" class control the majority.

Quiet desperation you really may want to review how IQ tests work. I'm not sure if you are just misremembering what you were told or got that info from wikipedia (if you did someone needs to go correct it) but IQ tests are scored on a bell curve... meaning if you are within one standard deviation in EITHER direction you are average. You also seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what we can glean from them. They are great when assessing people below the median and can very insightful when deciding the type of treatment or help they may need. Whereas heading in the other direction it doesn't have much predictive power. * These misunderstandings are pretty common so sorry it's off topic but its a pet peeve of mine.

*sorry im on my phone so I do not have links for you to follow. But you should read up on the different tests,, they are super interesting. But I am a bit biased with my field of study :-)*

Kate Shaw Yoshida / Kate is a science writer for Ars Technica. She recently earned a dual Ph.D. in Zoology and Ecology, Evolutionary Biology and Behavior from Michigan State University, studying the social behavior of wild spotted hyenas.